The Wing Life Podcast | Episode #51 Murray Saunders

Murray, the owner of Foil Board Company (FBC) and partner at K4 fins, joins us to talk about:

The FBC origin story & his love for wind and water
Wing Foiling Travel Tips and Tricks - How to pack your gear safely
Board Bag Basics (Padding, Zippers, Handles, Breathability etc.)
What goes into designing and producing high-quality bags suited for harsh environments
The FBC Rad Series
And more!

(00:00) - - Intro
(02:15) - - Introduction to FBC & Winger Winging
(24:37) - - Designing a Good Foil Board Travel Bag
(31:54) - - Padding and Protection for Foils and Wings
(37:20) - - Choosing Functional and Durable Zippers
(38:18) - - Choosing the Right Board Bag: Weight and Durability
(39:18) - - Securing the Board: Straps, Tie-Downs, and Lightweight Security
(41:41) - - Materials and Features: Strength, Scrapes, and Convenience
(46:58) - - Future Development: Downwind Bags and Expansion
(57:13) - - Supporting Local Shops and the Community

This episode is brought to you by La Saladita Kite School in La Ventana, Mexico. Book your lessons today at https://saladitalaventana.com/

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Creators & Guests

Host

Luc Moore

I started windsurfing in 2012, a year after my brother and I visited Kauai, Hawaii. In 2009 I was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident that required two intensive surgeries to stabilize my pelvis. Three years later, I was still heavily engaged in rehab, but I had been cleared to walk by my orthopedic surgeon, so we finally decided to visit the islands. My brother had just started windsurfing, so we started looking online for gear for him, and we came across a woman selling late her husband's equipment. She recounted to us that his life had been spent on the ocean. As a pro windsurfer, his love and passion for the sport were undeniable. At that point, I thought I could try this sport and carry on his legacy of love for the water and wind if I worked hard enough. Initially, I couldn't ride with my harness on without experiencing terrible low back pain. I was terrified of the water, knew nothing about wind, and if I got moving at any speed, scenes of my accidents would replay in my mind, which lasted for years. It took a lot of work to differentiate fact from fiction. To add to this mess of emotions, numerous specialists and acquaintances had repeatedly told me that I was now broken. I could never jog pain-free again, let alone enjoy pain-free sports. They told me to accept that as my truth and to move on. My mom and brother helped me keep going as our shared passions, and family support helped me overcome obstacles. The pure joy I felt with my continued progress on the water helped those wounds begin to heal. In time, windsurfing felt so good physically and psychologically that it would bring me to tears on the water. I would spend hours practicing the basics and quickly improve. This sport was one of the catalysts that helped accelerate my healing process. When my skills had reached the great lake level, I started sailing with my neighbour Danny. He is one of the best windsurfers in eastern Ontario and travels worldwide, pursuing his passion in his spare time. In 2018 when Wing Foiling first came out, I quickly felt like this sport would take my love for wind and water to the next level. Our Co-Host Tom helped me find gear and gave me my first intro lesson! I quickly picked up the sport and learnt the basics. I then contacted some kite schools on Vancouver Island (Elevation Kiteboarding & Windrider Kiteboarding) and started teaching for them! Shortly after, Tom and I created the Wing Life podcast to help share our stoke and knowledge of wind sports with others.

What is The Wing Life Podcast?

Our podcast is dedicated to the sport of Wing Foiling. Tune in as we interview top athletes, equipment designers, brand managers and every day enthusiasts from around the globe. Hosted by Luc Moore

Luc Moore (00:00.91)
you

Welcome to the Wing Life podcast, where we talk about wing foiling and the lifestyles of those who enjoy this great sport. We managed, all right, this is a little too bad. Oh, it's the same thing here. Like we've, I finally found this year some mitts that were a little bit more feasible. Like they're pre -curved, they're a little bit thinner. They're a three mil, but I had a really good wetsuit, like a six five, um, six five from.

I can't remember the name of the brand right now. That's a big Wesley though. And at six five, it's like a, it's like a Mitchel and Sue, isn't it? When you wear them there, that's a lot of neoprene, isn't it? This one, um, I I'm completely blanking in the name though, but it was super, super good here. Let me look at that. Six point five. I was from what's the other company anyways, doesn't matter. But, um, but yeah, like that, that's mitts are fricking tough, man.

hands die, whatever. It's not that fun. I got a new one though, like, wear a neoprene beanie under your helmet. Thermal like rash vest, one of those polypropylene ones, you know, the fluffy ones. Yeah, it's not like neoprene. It's just, it's like a sort of like, yeah, it's like a, we call them here like polypropylene. So it's like a, it's like a

It's like it's not a wool, it's a plastic wool that doesn't absorb water. And I reckon with that hat on, with the beanie, neoprene beanie with the helmet over the top, because there's not a lot of heat loss going out of your body. So your body's got enough heat to send it to your hands. And yeah, I've been sort of, this year is the first time I've done that. And this year it seems to work all right, you know? So it's my new tactic of stopping the chill blade, so.

Luc Moore (02:02.51)
Um, Oh, yeah, I got an Excel six, five dry lock. That's what it was. The new Excel dry locks are insane. Like I would almost be dry coming out. Um, yeah, but yeah, so you guys are based at England or we're in the Southwest. Yeah. How about yourself? We're about to see you guys. Um, so Frank and Matthias are in Germany. Uh, Frank, I think they're both near Frankfurt and, uh, my,

Myself, I'm out of Ottawa right now in Canada, but then I spend my summers on Vancouver Island. So we kind of bounce between both spots. Uh, yeah, my mom lives out here and my brother lives at West. So we chase wind and do our kiting and windsurfing winging thing at West in the summertime. So it's awesome. Yeah. Cool. Near the gorge too. I see the starboard in the background of there. Right? Yeah. That's my buddy's, uh, 70. What size is there? I think it's a 74 liter quad or something.

It's not the old light. It's not the evil twin is it or something like, uh, they, cause they made that like funny back to front quarter one point, didn't they starboard. It's called the quad. This one's the quad IQ. Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah Kito was like, is that the code is like, no, no, that's the, I don't know, but yeah, it's a, I think I've written it once in like 25 to 30 on the great lakes and it was super fun. Yeah. It's just longer.

It's a bit of a longer board, but I don't know. I think that's where they're thinking is the code, because the code was not that as a weapon, the code Christ that was. Well, I was like 18 years ago, I reckon the code. Um, they had the blue, had the blue outline with the same sort of graphics on the side there. And it was good. It was like a freestyle bump and jump kind of board. And, um, yeah, it's in that trend setting stage where they went into the bump and jump and all that. And, uh,

I was working in Greece and that's how I know it because everybody wanted to get on that board at the time. So. Oh, nice. What were you doing out in Greece? I was working just as a windsurfing and dinghy sailing instructor for like one of the holiday companies out of England. So yeah, it's good fun. I think like 20 years old, young, free, single, no kids.

Luc Moore (04:23.566)
Commitment free and instructing with a six pack on the beach. Yeah. I think we got paid 90 pounds a week, but we didn't get 90 pounds. We got 50 pounds and they kept 40 pounds and you only got the 40 pounds if you finished your contract. Yeah. So I reckon the, I reckon the tactic for the management was to sort of get you in so much trouble in the last two weeks of your contract that you, they'd be too naughty. And then they would take the whole retainer away, which was your 40 pounds a week.

which you'd been earning and saving up and, uh, yeah. And then you lose your retainer, like 1500 quid or something. And you have to pay for your flight back is just terrible slave labor. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah, I've taught, um, so I helped create the wing foiling program for two schools on Vancouver Island. Um, I kind of got hired there. They didn't know a ton about winging and I had.

been doing it for a season or two. So I was teaching there and I still do, I still contract myself out every once in a while, whenever I have a bit of time, but super fun kind of, there are two beautiful inlets. So one is at China Creek, which we've talked about other ones that knit that lake. So kind of one is more of a fishing village, but the other ones in old growth rainforests and it's a long, long lake. So you get thermals every day.

wind is like 20 to 20 and a half knots or 25 to 25 and a half. It's consistent all day. Yeah, like it gets, well, let's say 18 to 25 maximum, I think. But it's such an amazing place to learn. So if anybody hasn't been out to the West coast of like Canada up North there, I think it's definitely, definitely worth checking out. It's bump and jump, but it's, it's so cool to like be in like a six foot.

old growth kind of rainforest and sleep amongst those giants and then just stick your head out when the wind line comes in because there's a thermal it's so special. My brother and I kind of learnt our sports there so but what about where you guys are at like obviously oceans coldish right? Yeah not too bad like it's I think it kind of bombs out at about nine degrees that sort of thing.

Luc Moore (06:47.118)
Yeah, so yeah, it's not Baltic. We're lucky because we're sort of in the southwest of England. So it's we're on the south coast. So we've sort of English channel more than Atlantic Ocean. But it doesn't. It's more air temperature that kills you rather than sea temperature. If you know the winds coming from like a cold direction like the east at this time of year, then it's cold. But if it's the southwesterly, it's like 12 degrees.

10 degrees, that sort of thing. Air temperature. That's manageable, isn't it? It's not some eight to 10 air. Yeah, that's pretty good. Like below that starts to get nippily. The new suit helped us here. I think I was in six degree air and five degree water or something. My feet froze, but my hands were good and my body was good. So like, I know the new the new suits coming out, but that's starting to get a bit. We were in a safe spot. Like I wouldn't necessarily recommend that for.

people to go out in crazy ocean stuff where you could get swept and it's that cold because you get hypothermic pretty fast if something bad happens. But when did you start with the whole wing windsurf wind thing? Like the windsurf wing. So it's windsurfing was, uh, it was like the first thing, uh, or, or still is, um, windsurfing. So I'm 38 now. I think I was about eight years old, that sort of thing.

Oh, shit, man. That's awesome. Yeah, super lucky. Just went out on like a little lake and lake on a holiday. From memory, it was actually from memory, it was a lake on a holiday in France, and they only had old school rigs and everything, as you can imagine. And I wasn't strong enough to actually lift a sail up out the water. But I managed to work out a way that you could hold the uphaul, keep the clue in the water, and you kind of just drag yourself across the lake and then

So full of, I see the same thing the other way. Yeah. And it was super old kind of gear and that was cool. And then, and then we got, when I got home, we kind of was, uh, did a little bit more windsurfing and, um, and yeah, it's kind of, it's cool. Isn't it windsurfing windsurfing is cool. And wind sports are super cool. And yeah, once you, once you get bitten by it, that's it. I think, um, if you're lucky enough to be able to continue doing it.

Luc Moore (09:12.014)
Cause I'm sure like most windsurfers, like every windsurfer will confess to get, you know, you're sort of windsurfing board and you look back at where the foot straps are and you're like, there's no chance I'm getting back there. You're gonna laugh on you. Why are they sort of in the middle where the masters meeting the board, you know, what are they doing all the way back there? And then slowly, slowly kind of work your way back to it. So yeah, it took me.

I think my first season in Ottawa, I was on a 12 foot long BIC kind of windsurf board with old cambered sails that weighed like a ton. And as soon as I would get going fast, it would shoot right up wind. Cause I was on the like the inside rail and pretty far back on the board and I did not understand. And then I was blown away at how fast it was. I had never gone like as soon as I switched to a one BIC 145 techno or something, I was blown away at how fast it was.

And then the blue one, the blue one with the, um, the sandwich seems sort of style. It was that they did the big techno, the blue, the blue deck deck one. It was a big, Oh, this one might've been yellow or something. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But it was like, I would just, as soon as I would get into the straps, it would go straight up wind and I would get so frustrated. And I asked everybody and like, I don't know, kid, I don't know what you're doing wrong. Like figure it out. I got hooked so fast. Once you're hooked, it's, um,

I don't know. I think it's a combination of like this kind of spiritual sort of connection with the water and nature. And then there's also this freedom that you feel from like snowboarding and skiing and getting propelled. And there's so much stuff to pick up on the water, right? There's so much stuff for your brain to pick up with. Because every single second, you got a million things to focus on, which I think is great because it helps me kind of zone right in and focus and slow down. Because...

I'm getting fully activated from all these different sensory things. And then there's the fun and everything. Um, what were your first kind of memories of that kind of process of falling in love with that sport? Yeah. Um, yeah, this is exactly what you say. You know, it's such a, I wouldn't be doing it. So dynamic and never one day is really the same. Even in a flat, flat water spot, you kind of catch that gust, the wind or.

Luc Moore (11:34.382)
or you hit that little bit of chop and everything is behaving differently. But I do remember like, I remember going to Portland, which is the local sort of harbor here, which is where they did the Olympics where they, when it was in England for the sailing, it's a super windy spot sticks out of the South coast, big kind of enclosed harbor, clean window. And I remember like, I absolutely pelting it across there or what felt like I was pelting it across there and thinking.

Some kids want to go to theme parks. Some kids want to go and watch sport. Some kids are at home playing PlayStation. And here I am on the water like, probably catapulted straight afterwards or hit the sandbar or something. I don't know. But yeah, it's just that feeling. It's just, it's uncomparable to anything really, I think. Because it's, yeah, wind sports are cool, aren't they? Yeah, kind of.

I pretty much love that. Did you anticipate the creation of wing foiling and did you anticipate anything new like that coming down the pipe or did you think we're just going to be stoked kiting and windsurfing till we got to be 90? Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I think that question is kind of a little bit like asking the guys that do America's Cup. Did they anticipate seeing monohulls foiling? Do you know what I mean? Like,

Nobody saw that coming. Yeah. It's like just impossible. And I know foiling has been around for a long time, but I did I think like at 28 years old that in 10 years time, wing foiling would be this kind of new crazy sport. Probably not. It's kind of, it's been there, hasn't it? It's always been in the background. Foiling is not a new thing, but it's never been what it is now. It's not.

and never been commercially what it is now, but also just like the practicalities of it are crazy. Like when you think about foiling and you look at like windsurfing, you get it. It's tangible. You stand on a board, you have a sail in your hand, you go forward. Kitesurfing is also semi -tangible in that respect. You know, you've got a kite, you've got a board, you go forward. Foiling it, it looks like you're balancing on a medicine ball all of a sudden, and it doesn't look feasible. But then when you're actually doing it,

Luc Moore (14:00.846)
It's probably easier than kite surfing and windsurfing to learn hands down, I reckon. And we're in this like epic phase now where we've got this new sport and everybody's doing crazy stuff, but it's really achievable. Well, it's not achievable to do the crazy stuff, but it's completely achievable to go down to your lake or your local beach and stand on a board and get foiling within two, three hours, which, which like, yeah, if you'd asked me that 10 years ago, I would have gone.

No way. Do you know what I mean? That's very true. That's very true. Yeah. Like, well, windsurfing, you got to earn it a lot, a lot. Well, I think it's, it's foiling is still difficult. I still had clients that took them a season or two or even three to kind of get going a little bit more comfortable based on skill. But I think the potential and possibilities of this and then traveling, like we're going to jump into your, um,

foil board company there because you guys got some pretty cool bags and I'd like to learn more about how you guys got that started. Because there's some right now, like even at, for example, our home spot on the island at Nittanatt, we're parking and you got to drive or sorry, we're parking and you got to walk through the woods. Depends where you park, like you could you could go, I don't know, 500 meters, you can go a kilometer, you can go shorter, but.

You end up carrying your foil on your shoulder, obviously foil facing forward kind of thing, mast on your shoulder kind of digs into you. It's easiest way to carry it that I find unless you hold the handle and then you got to dodge trees and obstacles and whatnot, or you put the whole thing on your head. Um, but I just saw this cool balls bag that I'd love to get into in a bit, but how did it go from instructing to then the creation of, of FBC?

Well, yeah, that's a good question and an answer. I'm not really sure, sure how it got there, to be honest, like most of everybody who does this stuff. Now, I was like, lucky, I went to uni and studied business and accounting for my sins. But what that allowed me to do was spend loads of time windsurfing and well, yeah, mainly windsurfing and

Luc Moore (16:26.028)
In England, I was in the extra uni in the Southwest and I was windsurfing with a guy called Andy King. Yeah, I don't know if you know Andy King. Has he sprung across your sort of radar at all? So, Andy's, I hope maybe he'll listen to this, but Andy's one of the best UK windsurfers in my mind and probably lots of other people in England that's ever been. And he's probably the UK windsurfer that didn't do the PWA, but.

would have done, should have done, and probably would have done very well with him. At the time he was working for Goya and Quattro for the importer in England. And he, he's a bit older than me, he got to that age where he's, you know, he was a pro windsurfer, not really earning too much money, I don't suppose, and like all pro windsurfers, and he got a job with the police force. So once that happened, he, you know, his...

role in Goya and Quattro was vacant. He phoned me up and said, look, would I like to do it? And I was like, yeah, perfect. So I sort of took on his role for Goya and Quattro for the importer in England, which was a company called Zero Gravity. A guy called Rick Binlow was running that. Yeah, and that was it really. So like Rick kind of almost passed me the keys. He's just like, right, sort that out, Murray.

run the import business for this and I was 24 or something I think and we were doing a lot. We were doing like Goya, Quattro, Amex, Marston Booms, Pat Love, Bags at the time. We did a couple of other brands. Oh, MFC for the Finns. That was really cool and super enjoyed it. Spent a lot of time understanding how the business works, spent a lot of time talking to the factories and the producers and

the guys from Gora and Quattro as well. I think you've done Keith DeBull on this as well. So we worked with him, super nice guys, all of them super great. So I learned a lot in that period of time, which was fun. And then I was windsurfing with a good mate of mine, now business partner, Steve Thorpe. And Steve got these fins out the back of his car and was like, and I was like, what are those?

Luc Moore (18:47.852)
I think we were down at seven right at the end of England, you know, right on the tip of land's end is called so right on the southwest tip of England, quite a good wave spot. He's just been making these fins like, I don't know, very good. And we all tried them and came off the water for winter thing, obviously. And we like, wow, Steve, these are really good. And Steve was, I think I said, well, what are you going to do with him? And he goes, I haven't really got any plans. I said, well, I reckon I could sell them to the shops, you know, that that.

They're cheaper than, than sort of G 10 fins that are being made because G 10 is expensive. Uh, and I said, I actually think that they're as good if not better. And Steve was like, so we started off with K four. Um, come on. Yeah. And then, uh, yeah, they're good. They're really good. And the, and the fins just got bigger and bigger. And then we, uh, Graham Eze got involved. So we sort of, uh, did a Graham Eze series. Um,

And yeah, it was cool. And that is literally we started in a shoe box. So we had a shoe box of things. That was it. And, and now we've got a warehouse full of my, I don't know, thousands of things. And, and yeah, we, it's super like something that was super pleased off. I mean, this is like the next generation. So I stopped working for the import business with go over and Quattro just so I can focus on K four and sort of take that to the next.

the next level if you like doing global distribution for that. And yet, you know, we've had like, PWA riders on the podium with those fins and everything. So and then the fins were doing really well. And then we had COVID and COVID I think kicked off sort of in the spring here in England anyway, or early spring, and the shops just all went like that's it canceled all their pre orders.

And I was just like, oh, well, word, that's it. The world's going to end. And we've been, I'd had Bulls Muller on our radar for sponsoring for freestyle. Cause I think he's super interesting dude. And windsurfing wise, he was making epic videos that were really interesting. You know, they're fun. They were just down to earth, good fun videos, a bit like the old Jason Polakow videos and stuff like that. Just, just ripping with rock music and all this and.

Luc Moore (21:15.308)
So anyway, so he was on the radar and then I saw Ensis hit the wing pointing brand that he was doing. And I said to my wife, I was like, I'm going to order one of those, you know, get in touch with Carl. Carl, you've spoken to Carl. I listened to that podcast, Carl Muller from Ensis and he was really hard to get hold of. And I thought this is a good sign. Like the guy's busy, you know, which is always a good sign when you can't get hold of somebody, it's normally a good thing. Yeah.

And then I said to Carlos, I said, send me a wing. I'm in England, we can import this stuff for you. Send me one. So he sent one down. I couldn't wing foil at all. And I pumped it up in the garden. And I sort of looked at it. This looks likely. We hadn't really seen wing foiling certainly at my local beach at all. And I was like, this is likely. I reckon this is going to work. And then from then on, you know, it's COVID. So everything was looking bad. So

might as well make a bad situation worse. So I ordered like a factory order of wings from Enzis and then the wing foiling thing just went, as you know, sort of up through the roof. And that's what got us into wing foiling. And then to answer your question, in a long way around, we like having sort of had the sort of distribution network from the fins, the experience from the

goy -o -quattro days of the industry and then the sort of experience and knowledge from Enzis we then launched FBC because certainly in the UK but I think globally there's a big demand for accessory products that are good accessory products and I wouldn't I wouldn't be too

I would be careful to say that there's a lot of brands making accessory products, but the products that they're making is to tick a box rather than to completely highlight it and make a product that's been specifically designed for that purpose. I think there's brands that sort of go, oh, we need an ankle leash. Boom, ankle leash factory, ankle leash, make us one. Whereas we've tried to not do that, we've tried to do almost the opposite of like, we want an ankle leash.

Luc Moore (23:38.028)
what does that ankle leash need to do? And the amount of time that we're spending on that ankle leash, making it perfect for wing foiling or for foiling, that's our goal. Do you see what I mean? And that's where FPC came about, like, let's not just make a travel bag, which is a small windsurf travel bag that you can put wing foiling gear in. Like, let's make a wing foiling travel bag. And yeah, that's what we're trying to do. And that's what we're gonna keep on trying to do.

Oh, awesome. Go back to K4. Like I still use, I think I have a 20 centimeter fin that I use for my tri setup. I have a fanatic like 83 liter that I got a couple of years ago, the grip, and you can set it up as a tri or a quad and I'm running a K4 in the center. And I love it. It's super sick. So anyways, pretty amazing that that connection is made. And so coming into travel bags like

What makes a good foil board travel bag? Cause I've seen some, um, and there's a plethora of different, um, questions plus things that are, that are important. So I thought I'd yeah, start off with there. Well, it's a good, I mean, it's a good one. I mean, like yourself having been a windsurfing, been a windsurfer, I'm a windsurfer, traveling windsurfing gear sucks. Like it's, it's heavy.

I mean, I got absolutely sort of mashed with excess baggage charges in the past for wind surfing gear. And so when we were looking at this, I went traveling to Fuerteventura with some friends and I took a wing folding bag and I couldn't really find a decent travel bag for wing folding. So I smashed it in a suck bag and like take the ends off and everything. I remember pushing it through the airport. I was like, oh my word.

This is so easy. You can go through the doors with the board, like either widthways or heightways, because it will go through them. Yeah. Whereas with windsurfing, you can go through it with it on its, on its width on the trolley, because it's too wide. It was too high. If you tried to do it vertically, so you had to sort of drag it through. And that's kind of what got the ball rolling. And as I say, right, we need to make a bag. That's just going to be epic for wing foiling and wing foiling is not really too heavy either. I think what a lot of people don't realize with traveling is.

Luc Moore (26:04.588)
A bag weighs what you put in it. So, you know, if you put in eight wings and three foils and two boards, it's going to weigh a lot. But really, when you go traveling, in my mind, you need one board, three wings and a foil with maybe two front wings if you're going to be picky. So we set about making a bag that was going to maximize the utility of traveling where it's got what you want to take in it.

and you're not paying for a big plastic sheet of wheels in the back of it or anything like that. Let's pay to take the gear that we want to take on holiday rather than the gear plus the bag plus the wheels plus everything else. And that's where it all came about. So our bag was, there's two basically, two criteria to designing it, which was making it as light as possible and also affordable because like travel bags,

you can make them out of Kevlar and they still get bashed and wrecked and everything by the guys in the airport. So, you know, you don't want to make a bag that's sort of 354 hundred euros because it's quite a lot of money when somebody is just going to drag it along the tarmac and throw it into the hold of a plane. So we wanted to make it affordable, but light, but obviously super padded for traveling as well. Which I...

which we did, we did 10 mil foam padding on all of ours. It's got a foil leaf with special compartments for front wing stabilizers, masks, fuselages. You can take that out as well. And on the version one travel bag, we didn't put wheels on it because in my mind, I couldn't find a solution to make a weight saving wheeled bag other than doing what everybody...

does, which is have a big molded piece of plastic in the back with two wheels stuck on it and you just sew it into the bag. But I mean, they weighed four kilos or something. So your weight allowance for a plane is 32 if you're flying with BC jet and over 10 % of that weight is taken up by your wheels. I want to take up extra wing or something like that, you know, for that. Yeah. So like that and convert that into pound, like 10 pounds, your bag would weigh and then you got a 50 pound limit.

Luc Moore (28:30.732)
Uh, so yeah, like you got mo well, not most of it, but you got a good chunk of it taken up by just the wheels. Cause that actually was the question that I was just asking around to people. Is it worth having the wheels for ease of use or is it worth saving the weight to bring more stuff? So yeah, and that's, that's the thing. And that's the question that we've internally been asking ourselves here. Um, and I think I showed you, uh, you.

like version two, which is the sort of evolution of our travel bag now, which has got the trolley wheels that you can put into the sleeve on the bottom of the bag. So you're totally right. Like how do we conquer that? What do we want? Do we want the ease of use of being able to drag it through an airport on wheels, or do we want to take that three and a half meter wing or that 2 .8 meter wing or the six meter wing, whatever it is?

to make sure that when we go on holiday, we get out as much as possible. So the version two of our travel bag, which we're just releasing sort of now, has got an extendable trolley, much like you get with your suitcase, with the sort of way you push the button in and the whole thing sort of goes with the arm. And you slide that into the base of the bag. It's got a Velcro system which goes around the handle of that.

That means that you can use it as a wheel trolley. So you wheel it out to the check -in desk and when you get to the check -in desk, it takes about 20 seconds. You undo the Vant Pro, take the trolley out, it then folds down to an A4 piece of paper size, sort of a couple of inches thick, that sort of thing. It weighs 1 .2 kilos, but you can then chuck that trolley in your hand luggage, you know, in your rucksack. But what it means is that that bag is weighing,

what that bag should weigh. You know, it's a, it's a bag with your gear in. Hopefully you're getting maximum utility on your, on your, on your weight that you've got. Um, and yeah, and you're not paying for four kilos or 12, 15 % of it isn't being taken up by this big plastic sheet that's just stuck in the bottom of the bag, doing not a lot. So, yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, no, that's a good idea. And what, uh, what do you think about compartments and whatnot inside?

Luc Moore (30:58.444)
Do you think it's worth it? Do you think it's easier for people to just pack their foils in the original gear bag that they have and just put it on top of their board and put their wings around it for padding? Like, what are your thoughts on all that? Yeah. So not, yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I'm always about when you're packing your, your, your board and your wings, it's.

For me, it's about making sure that what you're putting there is protected as much as possible, especially the foil, because they're really expensive and they're actually not very easy to fix either. If you take a wingtip off a foil, if you dink your board, you can fix that, but to wingtip off a foil or something is hard work to fix. So I would say, like in my world, we designed a foil leaf, which so the board goes in the bag, the foil leaf goes on top and then in that foil leaf, it's...

It's got padded compartments, one for the front wing, one for the mast. And that works well because the foil bag, which you might get with your foil, is more like a kind of gun bag or something in its shape, isn't it? It's kind of rectangular and chunky. And that doesn't really fit in the traveling scene so easily. Whereas ours, it sort of sits on the deck of the board in this padded leaf. And then you can just put your three wings on top of it, three or four wings.

on top of that and it all sort of zips down, compacts down and what you're left with is quite a nice kind of coffin board shaped bag and the wings are protecting the foil because they're on top of it. The board's obviously underneath it so that protects the foil as well. There's 10 mil padding around the whole thing so that protects the board and we also designed it so that

It's easy for the guys in the airport to carry the board as well because I don't know how, I mean, you've seen the pictures of people at airports when they're looking out the window seeing major lordship. But you kind of get it because they look at the board and they go, how are we going to carry that? There's one handle on the rail, which, which, you know, this board weighs 30 kilos. How am I going to pick that board up with one hand? Not going to happen. And there's one handle on the tail and the nose.

Luc Moore (33:23.596)
We think, well, that's a good, good handle just to drag it and launch it across the runway, you know, as they do. Um, so, so when we designed ours, we kind of thought, well, how are we going to make this look like achievable for the average person to lift? Because, you know, we might do it with kid gloves when we're putting it onto the conveyor belt to go into the, you know, when the doors shut down on the open -sized baggage, it's probably the last time I'm going to see that. Isn't it? Um,

But yeah, we've got that. So we put like three handles on the rail so you can pick it up with two hands because it sounds stupid. But like I said, for your guy in the airport, if he sees two handles on the rail, he grabs it with two hands and then he can maneuver. Valid point. Yeah. Yeah. You're making it easier for him to not trash our stuff, which is well thought out to be because if he gets frustrated, it's over. He's just going to chuck it. He's going to drag it. He's going to chuck it. He's going to resent it for the rest of his life.

Yeah, he doesn't care about surfing, does he? He's just, you know, he's paid to get these bags off and he needs to do as quick as possible. And then he's got this 30 kilo of, of just anger and agony looking at him and he's like, right, that's it. You're having it. I'm having an argument with the Mrs. I'm late. I'm late for the kids to pick them up. This bag's coming out one way. Yeah, that's true. Then we get to cry afterwards as it was our vintage board that just got smashed.

Okay, so specific handles, you got good compartments inside. Do you think 10 mil is enough padding? Like I was always curious to see whether or not they would be like battens for reinforcement or battens along around the outside of the board bag to keep it so you can't get it squished as much. Like has there been any of that kind of consideration for squish prevention kind of thing? Yeah, so we sort of thought about it. We did make a

Prototype board bag which had this kind of like Carbon almost rails. So it was like a solid board bag or at least solid railed board bag, but I think the reality of what what we found from experience and testing it and traveling with it ourselves It the 10 mil seems to be fine. I think if it's gonna get bashed, it's gonna get bashed You know, I think that's it what you need to try and

Luc Moore (35:50.124)
mitigate is just the little knocks. You know, the knock it against this, like I was saying, it's been picked up and it's been chucked onto the trolley and it's taken a knock there and a knock here. I mean, somebody is going to drop it from 10 foot, it's going to get dented. And it's how far do you go with that? Because much like what I was saying before is we could make a bulletproof travel bag, but it will be 2000 pounds, $2 ,000.

So it's a compromise of affordability versus that utility that you get from the product. And I think with the 10 mils of good size, it's still lightweight. I've traveled a lot with ours and I test it hard. I'm that one who's just launching it across the place to see if I can dent it and see what happens. And touchwood so far, I haven't had a stress. So.

Uh, 10 mil seems to be a good 10 mil is a good number. Is it, is it, yeah. You've got to remember everything that you add to it makes it heavier. So. Yeah, that's a valid point. Okay. Zippers. Cause that's often a bone of contention. I find that a cheap day bag, the zippers are crap. They seize like, what were your thoughts on coming up with zippers that'll work through salt that'll work through a variety of different kinds of conditions in that sense over time, right?

Right, yeah, and I kind of have quite a bit of experience with zippers with, you know, when I was working with the BAG company before. We spent quite a bit of time looking at different zip options and the zip that we chose was, again, it was like a balance between affordability and how hard it was to zip up, how much pressure you could put on it, whether it would...

or just pull open or not, that sort of thing. So going back and touching back, I think it's not just the zipper that you're looking at, you're also looking at how on a bag, how you design the bag. So like the travel bag's got compression straps, which you can adjust on both, like the left and right hand side of the bag. And again, if you've got good compression straps, you can tighten those up, which relieves the pressure on the zip. So sometimes it says,

Luc Moore (38:18.956)
two ways to skin a cat. You could put some, a zip on there that's really hardcore, super expensive, or you can look at where that zip's going to fail, how it's going to fail and try and do something to prevent that from happening in the first place. Do you see what I mean? So that's what those board straps inside are for is to actually attach the board more to the, to the bag. So it's less pressure on the zipper. Yes. We've got the, the, what the internal straps, which, um,

which we can strap the board down, but you can also take those internal straps around the board and the foil leaf. So it squashes the whole thing down, just stops it from like moving. Like it's the bashing aspect of traveling. But on the external side as well, we've got sort of two tie -down straps, sort of just forward and aft of the middle of the board. And again, we can use those to tighten down the bag, which actually just takes all the pressure off the zip. Off the zipper. You're right. You're right. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think sometimes when you kind of look in at things, you can over engineer one part, or you can think about the bigger picture and come up with a solution where, you know, you don't need to go too heavy on this or too heavy on that, but they combine those factors together and they'll offer a solution if you see what I mean. Yeah, no, I like that because everybody's traveling now and I've seen this question kind of pop up.

a ton. It's like, yeah, where do we go? What's the best one to get price versus weight? Is my stuff going to be safe? So like we've covered kind of a lot of those basic questions and even packing you're saying that is it's obviously smart to put stuff in the front of tail. There were some guys that were saying they were using cardboard and folding it in half and putting that over the tail and then the nose so you could kind of create your lightweight kind of

compression sort of prevention and putting everything else in there. Have you found anything that you could add that's fairly light to add just a little bit level of security? If he's going to choss it from 20 feet, I don't think it's going to matter. But I like your thoughts about the handles, given the fact that you haven't make it their job as easy as possible. And if their job is easy, they're more likely to less to have to like handle it a little. It's going to be easier for them, which, yeah.

Luc Moore (40:43.18)
which is good. I think also sometimes there's like, we could make we could make something that could go around the nose and that could go around the tail. But but then you just kind of charging people for something that they can do themselves just as easily or if probably not better. So like when I go traveling, I get a changing towel, you know, with the hood and everything. And with a with like a 16 meter board wing falling board, the changing towels about the same length as that.

So I just insert the board up the changing towel, the hood kind of wrap fit around the nose. And then, so it's almost like a board sock, but you've got the added advantage that then you've got a towel and you get wherever you go. So yeah, sometimes I think just, I'll tell you one of the things I used to do with windsurfing was I'd get a towel, I'd put them strategically around the board and then I'd get cling film and just wrap the cling film around the board.

cling film weighs nothing, but it keeps the towels like on the rails, it keeps the towels on the nose, or your clothes or whatever, you know, just put them where you want them on the deck on the whole cling film them on around the whole thing. Darn cling film is cheap, isn't it? So that always worked well. Oh, that makes sense. What kind of materials and stuff did you guys go through? Because you got to guess a couple different factors, a little bit of breathability.

Like you mentioned a little bit about some, like your stuff soaked, so you have to keep the bag open, like all those kinds of questions. Yeah. So it's difficult, isn't it? Because materials are often quite heavy. So for travel, for the travel bag, we use 1680D nylon, which is a, it's pretty widely used. It's a strong, tough nylon. It can take being dragged on the floor. It's not too heavy.

That was about as heavy as we were prepared to go. Because again, go back to that weight limit thing that's always on your mind. On the day bag, we used 600D nylon, which is a good one. We've got a water resistant or water repellent material on the day bag as well, which works well. Because if you're at the beach, like I go to the beach, take it in the day bag, shut the bag on the beach, leave it there.

Luc Moore (43:09.452)
And if it rains, don't really want that bag just to be completely soaked. So we've got the top lining on the bottom that doesn't absorb the water, but there's sort of water resistant top. Um, and yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's a consideration. Obviously the materials that you use, you're always thinking about them. Um, but a lot of them have tried and tested and proven, you know, for, for their weight versus their, their sort of ability to withstand the,

scraps of scrapes that they get. Yeah, that's fair. I just I saw your day bag like the balls bag. That thing looks sick because like I was mentioning a little bit before that if I'm walking like half a kilometer to the beach or something having that would be phenomenal. So where did that guy do? Is that kind of a natural evolution of like, I would be smart to just make it a backpack. Yeah, yes. Tricky one, isn't it? The backpack.

So we set off to make a bag which you can like carry a board on your back. Then, so it's a tough one to do. It seems really easy. Let's just make it so that you can strap it to your back. But it's not that easy because you've got the zipper, you've got the foil cut out as well, and you've got the different length of board. And what we kind of worked out is that you have to have the board

nose pointing down for it to work for a star because you've got the zipper if you do it the other way. So if you do it tail down, you can't put the mounting point low enough to stop it from hitting your heels. Whereas you flip it the other way down, so it's nose down, the mounting point, particularly on like the bigger boards, has to be quite close to the nose. So there's a magic number between where the nose is and the sort of

bottom mounting point for your shoulder straps is. And that distance is actually the same on all the bags, whether it's an extra small 50 litre board bag or the large 120 litre board bag. It's just, of course, it then sticks above your head more. But then the problem is you can't really have the foil on it because if you've got the foil which sticks out, you know...

Luc Moore (45:31.948)
80 85 centimeters at the end of the mass that's got quite a lot of leverage got quite a lot of weight it just puts a lot of stress and strain on the back and there's a kill radius which so if you've got it on your on your back with the foil stick it out and somebody goes Murray you've left your car unlocked you turn around and go what and it's like your foil was over here just killing people so so yeah

Like it works great if you haven't got the foil on. So then it's, then it's cool, but you then have to carry the foil. So it's a, it's something that we're still working on. Um, I don't think there's necessarily a solution to carry board and foil cause of just everything. Um, but if you want to carry your board on your back and take it out to the beach and have your foil, you know, maybe you build your foil or you just have it in your house and that works. Um, yeah, something.

something that we're working on. I think if you can, what do you think? Like if you, the key point here would be what, strapping the board to the inside of the bag, for example, so the weight was more on that inner piece with the straps on it, and then you would just end up zipping, like there would have to be less weight on the zipper, right? Is that where you're kind of going with? Yeah, sort of, yeah, to some extent. I mean, the zipper can handle it. It's no stress. It's just,

It's just the sort of technicality of having a big square block at the back of your legs. We tested it both ways, but it just worked better if the board was pointing down. But even if it was the other way around and the board pointing upwards, you still have the foil which would be sticking out by the back of your calves. And yeah, it's just a tricky one, that one. But...

It's cool. I think we'll carry on working. We've come up with a solution which allows you to carry the board, which is cool. And that works. And with the foil, yeah, I'm not sure. Not sure. Not sure from a health and safety perspective. It's completely doable either.

Luc Moore (47:50.668)
I'm gonna wait for it, because I want that thing to walk down the hill or walk down the other spots. And I don't care as much about people, because it's just trees. But it's more so it would be a godsend to do. I guess right now I throw one on my shoulder and I carry one in my hand and I got my wing strapped to my chest or something awkward. And I can normally do it in one trip, but then the weight starts to add up. But anyways, keep us...

Keep us appraised about this one because it would be pretty sweet to pretty sweet to have. Yeah, no, we're still it's not it's on the list. It's on the list. It's, uh, I mean, we worked pretty hard on it trying to get it sorted in the first place. Uh, and like I said, it works great if you just kind of bored. Um, uh, so yeah, we, yeah, it's a good bag though. There's a really good bag as a day bag goes, it's got everything like the carrying it on your back is sort of just one 10th of what it offers. If you know what I mean, cause it's got.

pockets for boots and gloves and towels and it's got tool pocket and it's got a breathing vent. It's a good bag. It's a good bit of gear down. Yeah. So what else goes into that then for me to know and others to know? Well, as in what else goes into the bag? Like how else can it be used? Like what else did you think of when you were designing that? Which is, we're curious about because you can just think of it, oh, it's just like a...

whatever, but there's a lot of thought that goes into designing something like this. Yeah, exactly. And I wanted to make a bag which we that I would be so like right now, England, winter, you take your you take your neoprene hat, you take your your boots, your gloves, you might take your dry robe or your changing towel, whatever. And I've got to walk to the beach, much the same as what you were saying for yourself. And

When I get to the beach, it's all very well just to chuck it down on the, all your gear down on the beach, but then it will get sandy and maybe you don't wear the gloves because you decided it's actually a bit warmer than you thought or whatever. So we built in this big mesh pocket into the tail of the bag so that you can stick your gloves and hat and changing towel into that area. Which was cool because then it keeps everything in one place. And it's got a tool pocket so you put all your Allen keys and stuff that's on the, near the middle on the handle on the.

Luc Moore (50:12.492)
on the top side of the bag. But we also, on that bag, we also decided to do a carry handle on the nose and the tail as well, much like you get on the travel bags. Just because when, like for me, if I'm in the van, I can grab it on the tail, I can just pull it out, you know, it makes it easier to use. And also if you're in your garage, you can hang it up from the carry handles on the nose or the tail, so that's cool. And then we also put in a breather vent as well because,

I don't know if you guys had it so much. Certainly in England there was a big, when the boards, when Wing Boys were first sort of coming out, sort of big production style, a lot of brands were getting osmosis on the, on the paint where it just starts bubbling. Did you get any of that? Did you see any of that?

Yeah, so there was a bit of a problem. And so the idea is that this little this valve, it's I mean, it's quite big. It's like 15 centimeters diameter, round perforated valve, and that allows airflow in the board. So you know, if it's, yeah, if your boards wet, and you leave it in a warmish place, like your garage or something, for for a while, it allows the the moisture to evaporate out the bag and

hopefully we'd stop that from happening soon. Yeah, okay. Cause I just saw a bag with that and I didn't know what that was for. So, okay. Interesting. Interesting. All right. So what do you think the future of bag development? Do you think there's anything, the Holy grail of bags that you think you would want to have or that you're, you're thinking about creating that's not under the hat? Yeah. So like right now we're going to the downwind bag market. That's the,

that's on the hit list. It's a tricky one because I've got a few downwind boards here at the moment, which we're sort of looking at. One's an Axis, off the top of my head it's 110 liters or something. It's six foot three, 24 inches wide, and I can't remember how thick it is. So you've kind of got that board, and then I've got an Insys Woltz, which is seven foot long.

Luc Moore (52:29.164)
20 inches wide. So, you know, then you've got some other boards, like I think some of the other brands are making, you know, going down the ends of this route, so maybe it's six foot long, 19 inches wide. So it's a tricky one to kind of get your head around exactly what size break you're gonna do the bags in because you've got these short, wide boards, you've got these long, narrow boards, but you've also got short, narrow boards.

So we've got a few ideas in the pan which will allow us to basically cover, well the plan is to cover pretty much every board other than maybe say that the top extremity and the bottom extremity, if it's a five foot two downwind board that's 30 inches wide, we're probably not gonna have a bag for that one. But 85, 90 % of the downwind boards will hopefully fit in.

four different sizes of bags, if you see what I mean. So we have four bag sizes and it's quite a cool concept. It's a bit of an adjustable board bag. You can change the length of it and you won't be able to change the width, but we'll basically do it in a wide version, not a narrow version. I haven't come up with the name for it because the boards aren't narrow, like a 20 inch board.

It sounds narrow, but I wouldn't classify it as narrow. I would just say it's narrower than the 24 inch board. Do you see what I mean? So we've got to work out how we do that. But yeah, four bags, which will basically cover every downwind board that's available on the max market. Okay. Are you guys kind of doing like Apple tree where they make boards for other companies? Have you guys thought about?

doing that where let's say if you go to, I don't know, you go to KT, go to Armstrong, you know, these different companies, obviously they're getting their boards, their board bags made somewhere. Is that something you guys have thought of or? Yeah. So we've been approached by a few, few brands asking us if we would like logo our bags up for them. Um, so far we've kind of not one, not really gone down that route. Um, like the goal with.

Luc Moore (54:50.252)
with FBC is to try and be that independent brand where you can put any board brand into it, any wing brand, you know, you could, you could, yeah, you should just put any board in, you know, you'd be as happy to have, I don't know, any, you know, that brand in this bag or that brand in this bag, rather than some of the brands, you know, like it always seems a bit strange when a brand tries to have,

Yeah, harnesses and wetsuits and bags and they're all under the same name. Because for me, like maybe I've got, let's say fictionally, I've got an FBC board. Do I really want to put it in a, I don't know, a different bag that's made by another board brand, whereas for us, it's a bag brand. And do you see what I mean? It doesn't give you...

It's just adaptable. Yeah, that makes sense. And the flexibility of it gives people, um, cause yeah, I guess you're focusing on that entirely. So your bags are going to be better and better designed than, than other companies. I can see that for sure. Yeah, that's the plan. Yeah. I don't really want to talk about other brands, you know, and sort of go, Oh, don't do it like this or don't do it like that. But I guess what I'm getting at is like, if you've got.

a duotone board, you don't want to put it in an RRD bag, you know, because that would be a bit, do you know what I mean? That would be against the brotherhood or the sisterhood. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Whereas you can put a duotone board in the, in the FPC bag or the RRD board in the FPC. Yeah. You're not cheating on them. Yeah, exactly. You're not cheating on your spouse with another board bag. I understand. Yeah, that's it. That's the plan. So yeah.

Nice. So where can people across the world buy your bags? Is it retailer kind of chains online? What are you guys thinking or doing? Yes. It's a good question. So in Europe and England, we're, we're pretty well set up with, with distributors, sort of mainland Europe and obviously us being in the UK with we're here. We've

Luc Moore (57:13.164)
got stock. America's on the list. America's on the list like North America. We've had a few conversations with a few different people. I think given like the global uncertainty that surrounds everybody at the moment, a few people have been burnt with overstocking. A few people have been burnt by taking on brands that maybe were promising more than they can deliver. So,

we're just sort of, you know, we're pretty happy with how it's going. We're super happy with how it's going. And Europe's obviously a big focus for us because it's so close. And yeah, yeah, like we get a lot of wind and Germany, for example, is a huge market. And it's Germany's definitely worth a lot of attention. Because what you could do in Germany, you could might do in, I know,

15 other small countries, do you know what I mean? So we've focused on, we're focusing on Europe and our domestic market. America is definitely on the list because I think you guys, North America's got a lot of windy but not windy spaces. Windy enough for foiling, not windy enough for kiting or windsurfing. I think that's how I read it anyway. How about you? There's like just looking across.

Canada, you got ocean on both sides, you got some great lakes on the kind of pretty much middle. And then southern US, you can go into Texas and stuff. And you got some stuff there in the Gulf. But then you got the whole western coast, which is amazing. You got into like Baja, which is once again, a lot of windy stuff in there. Like I'm heading off to Loventana for a couple months to work from there. And like, hopefully.

We get some wind almost daily right now. It's they're pretty much on season. So there's, there's quite a bit. Um, and there's, yeah. And there's hood river, Oregon, all that kind of stuff in there as well. So Columbia river, which gets super busy. So once you start adding up the spots, even the great lakes are phenomenal. Uh, you get some really, really good foiling windsurfing there, kiting there. The communities are like, even in our small town, I think we have about 300 people in Ottawa in the capital.

Luc Moore (59:35.916)
But then you got all from Quebec City to Toronto. So like, what is that six to eight hour drive will drive to Sandbanks for like Ontario for a big day. So it's pretty cool. The yeah, like the we drive, I'll drive six hours in a day to get a good session there. If it's looking 20 to 25 head higher, higher. So like, it's definitely we, I think we have more people than we, than we think, cause it was anticipated. Well, it's not ocean, but.

You get out into Lake Ontario, for example, and it's like eight foot swell, 10 foot. My, uh, my neighbor's been out in 20, 18, 20, and I was on shore cause it was like three, three to two nine to two seven. And I was like, I'm too small of a guy. I can't hold down. I can't hold it down, but there, there are some sizable conditions out here for sure as well. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's awesome. And also the other thing I think like with, with North America is you've got.

like good community, but you've got a motivated sort of shop base as well. Like I was trying to buy something that you can't get in Europe right now to test it out. And like the sort of the websites that you guys have got, the retailers are doing a smart job, you know, it seems like they're on it and they're making great videos, you know, big product videos, product review videos. There's a lot of content coming out of North America for that.

much more than coming out of Europe and everything. That's good to hear. Yeah. We've got some solid shops in Canada. Um, you got like three or four or five shops out of Quebec, which are good. Ontario is pretty decent. You got a couple of Manitoba and then you got some stuff in Alberta. You got some stuff in BC. Um, yeah, overall fairly impressive. And Oregon, you got so many shops there. Uh, and they're like big wins and all those guys, like they're putting out some super good stuff. Um, can't forget Cape Hatteras as well.

Hatteras and stuff down in North Carolina. You got some super awesome stuff there for anybody looking to learn. That's a beauty spot. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, good content and good stores as well. And that's the nice thing about using that retail network and trying to keep things a little bit offline. What are your thoughts on that versus just direct sales?

Luc Moore (01:01:56.908)
Obviously you save a few percentages, but do you find it impacts the grassroots community or even the prices or? I think you've got to, you've got to do, you've got to, you've got to support your shops. That's for sure. And you have to have a wholesale price list. Um, like for me, shops are an absolute fundamental part of the, to the sport and, um,

Like as I was growing up, you know, it's the shop that you sort of go and see and it's those guys that you get all your little snippets of gems that take you to that next level. So yeah, like big fan of shops, we will always sort of look and support them and there'll always be the opportunity for shops to, and we would always favor shops as well. You know, like you say, direct sales, whatever, but you know, if you can push it for a shop, it's much better.

I really like it when you see shots getting behind products or sports. For me, that's like really, really important. If they're proactive, they're on Instagram, they're promoting, they're doing, all that is just dust gold, isn't it? Because if they're not into the sport and they're not...

Nobody does our sport to get rich, I suppose is what I'm getting at. You know, it's, it's, you should do it for the love of it and you should do it because you enjoy it. And because like what we were saying right at the very start, you know, that feeling of skimming along the water, whether it's on a windsurf or whether you're flying above it on a foil, there's nothing else like that. And, and that's why you should be doing, that's why you should be in this industry. That's why you should be selling the gear. That's why you should be totally full on a hundred percent froth factor because you just love that feeling.

Um, not because you like to sit behind a desk and, you know, watch web orders come in or something like that. I don't know. Yeah, no, that you're the whole goal of this is to help, I guess it's our little piece, right? To make the world a little bit of a happier and healthier place with in saying that if you feel this way, hopefully you're going to carry into other aspects. You'll carry it into fatherhood. You're caring is all these different things, which makes sense, right? Cause that's stoke over, over, uh,

Luc Moore (01:04:17.932)
share price or over pushing that. So that I understand. And that completely makes sense to me. Is there anything else you wanted to cover? Kind of answered all my questions about board bags. That's pretty cool. I had a couple of them coming in. It was like, I don't know, man, what all these things, what makes a good day bag, foil travel bag, all this stuff. Thanks for answering that, by the way. Yeah, there was. It's a funny one. Like we've

all got bags and we've all had bags. It's not until you start getting down into the nitty gritty of bags that you kind of go, oh, I just actually like this bag. I'd like that bag. You know, I'd like to have this on my bag. But why has it got that? And you're like, well, probably because nobody ever really gave it too much time. They just make us a bag. So no, I mean, we do lots of leashes as well. Leashes are a good one. Leashes are a big part of.

of falling on everybody's got a leash. Not everybody's got a bag, but everybody's got a leash. So if not, your board floats down the lake. I've had that happen twice. Yeah. Oh my God. It's terrible. Fuck man. It just takes off. There's no way you can. So I was like, I was on the island this summer. My mom was down. I was giving her a lesson. It was like 1314 knots, right?

So I was like, forget it. I gave her my waist leash. It's fine. You can have it. There's no way I'm falling. It's super easy. So I'm tacking back up wind, like going slowly back up wind. Something happens. I happened to fall. And then sure enough, the wing flips over and lands on the board and pushes the board just out of reach. And you know when your leash gets caught in your trailing edge and it's around you and you're all tangled? And I was like, come on. So I couldn't get around it, sure enough. And then.

The board is always like a foot away from your fingertips. You're like, if I swim really hard, I can get it. But it just took off and I had, thankfully it did not go to an outflow that night. And I found it the next day in a sandbar at 7 a .m. after I had freaked out and hardly slept. Cause it was like six grand in the center of a lake. And the lake is so big that I was super fortunate to have found it.

Luc Moore (01:06:36.492)
But yeah, so anyways, that's where leashes are extremely important. So what kind of leashes do you guys make and what do you think makes a good wing foil leash? Just making it work. Just making ease of use. For leashes, ease of use of strength. That's the two things, isn't it? It needs to be easy to use. All those little annoying things that happen. So like our waist belt leash for the boards got a big...

big loops sewed into it so that it can't go through the buckle. So rather than having to thread it back through the buckle, it's got like a Dyneema buckle on it, rather than having to thread it back through and mess about, it always just stays as one big loop. So you step in it, pull it up around your waist, tighten it up, Velcro it down, done. And when you take it off, you do the same. Whereas some of them don't have that big loop, which then means that they come unthreaded.

and then you got mess about threading it up and all that. So yeah, with the leashes, it's all just being like full on, let's make them as strong as we can and as easy to use as possible. Less fast, the better. And actually on the, so I don't know if you've had it, but on the, you know where the leash attaches to the leading edge, it's got like that little bit of three mil rope on it, right?

Some people, if you get absolutely smashed big time, that bit of 3mm rope can pull out the leading edge. It doesn't happen very often, but it can happen. So we came up with a system that attaches to that leading edge loop, but it's got a safety loop which attaches to the leading edge handle as well. So if you do get... Yeah, it was a bit techy to kind of devise it, but there's a video online on how it works, but...

Yeah, so if you rip that out, you've always got that secondary security that it's on that front handle, which is that's pretty popular. I think we're kind of like touch wood. Well, probably not now because everybody, if anybody's listening to this that designs leashes, they might do it as well. But yeah, we're like the only ones that are doing that. And it yeah, it's a good, good little because you know, it sucks when you get out there and.

Luc Moore (01:08:57.324)
I've actually had it not ripping the leash out like that, but I've had it where I was doing a downwind and I got the phone to take some photos and I just let go of the leash by accident and the wing, it goes, doesn't it? You know, it just, it disappears. You can't catch it. It's like, oh God damn it. And so yeah, luckily I was with some people and they went and jumped on it, but you just, yeah. So breaking, leashes breaking or ripping out of wings is, you just walk, don't want that. You just don't need that.

you just don't need that in your wing in your winging day. So so yeah, that's that's what games leashes that's how we sort of make them just make tough. I guess jumping onto your website, you got your wing waist leash, you got a wing wrist, you got a board waist leash. You got the rad series, you got the wing waist leash, wrist wing board waist, okay.

Is there a difference between the regulars and the rad? Is it just, you got a little funky balls colors? Is that what's going on? Yeah, exactly. This is exactly what happened. So yeah, bulls and I were sort of saying like every, like the cool thing about our sport is that it's just fun. Uh, but the uncool thing about our industry is it kind of has a tendency to be really corporate and, um, the colors can kind of be a bit boring. So.

So we wanted to make something so we got, like you said, like you touched upon earlier, the bulls, the rad bag, which we've actually just done a travel bag in that as well, which we're going to sort of be releasing. It's just super bright, like 1980s retro ski color. That was the inspiration for it. Don't take yourself too seriously. That's that that's like loud and proud.

Yeah, it's just fun, isn't it? It is a good looking board bag. So for those at home, it's foilboardcompany .com forward slash rad slash dash series, but you can go to the foilboardcompany .com website, check this stuff out. You got balls right there, front row center. And yeah, you got some cool pinks and blues and yellows and that's a...

Luc Moore (01:11:20.076)
Yeah, straight out of the eighties, man. That's pretty cool. Fresh out of the eighties. Well, brother, is there anything else you want to touch on or is that pretty good for, uh, for today? What are you thinking? That's cool. Well, no, thank you for, uh, thank you for like reaching out and having a chat. It's, um, it's a cool thing to do. Um, we've been listening to your podcast in the office actually. So, uh, yeah, I'll let the boys know.

Yeah, I said to the guys, I was like, they've had all these legends on here. Why do they want to talk to me? Man, I have never seen a bag like this. And like the second I saw it, I was like, man, like this would make my life like a backpack carry bag that I could have my foil and to walk down my little wooded path. Yes, it might, it might hit a person, but it might hit a tree, but I still think it would be super sick to have.

As long as you're conscious of the person that's around you, it's absolutely fine. Then you can carry it all day long, but I wouldn't get on the tube with it. Do you know what I mean? Cause you might end up doing some time in prison. Well, it's no different than carrying like a 400 centimeter mass cut in two, right? So you're 200 and you're carrying it on your shoulder or skis and you're like, Hey mate, what's going on? And you turn and like with your big ski tips and stuff that are super sharp. Like we're kind of used to that over here with snow.

Cause you're like, yeah, we gotta be conscious of when we turn around. So that's why I didn't really think about that. But if you could put a disclaimer, like, you know, like long, whatever you can figure it out. But if you're thinking of turning around, just think, think before you turn. And for those, for those who are looking to get ahold of you, order bags off for you and check out your website, what's your website and Instagram and all that kind of thing.

So it's yes, like you said earlier, it's all just on the foilboard company .com. So all of our contact details and Instagram and those sort of bits are on there. So that'd be cool if people can check it out if they've got a minute. And also, feel free to email us with any thoughts or ideas because all of we're super lucky at home, I've got sort of three good buddies that they're all clever dudes. They're all professional people.

Luc Moore (01:13:46.572)
they all wing, like that's their life. It's not their job, but it's what, you know, if it's windy, they're winging and they give us the best feedback, you know, for practical, about the bags, about the leashes. They like this, they don't like that. This buckle was good, that buckle was good, whatever. And that's really what we're about. We're not just kind of like, we're doing it our way and that's it. We really feed off the feedback that we get, so.

So if anybody is out there and they're using our product and they have some feedback to give us and my email address, happy to give it out, just email me, it's just Murray, M -U -R -R -A -Y, and then the company's win, so W -I -N, and then driven, D -R -I -V -E -N, .co .uk, and if you've got any good feedback or criticism, we've got four shoulders, we could take a bit of criticism, then just tap us up with it and we'll try and do a better job with the next one.

Awesome. Well, hey, like, uh, thanks, Mary. Well, thanks for coming on today. You guys are board bag legends. So of course we'd want you on here. So, uh, thanks for joining us and I'm sure we're going to talk soon. So yeah. Yeah. And you have to let me know about that. Uh, that board that you've got, we'll send you some front fins for it as well. If you've only got the rear. Yeah, that would be sick actually. Yeah. I'll, um, I just, I just have it packed for an upcoming trip. So I'll take some pics and I'll send it over.

But yeah, it's what's happened over. I think you've probably got the scorcher in the back by the sounds of it. I think it's probably a 20 centimeter scorcher, which is the, uh, that's like the good tri fin one. Okay. Um, so we've, we've just actually made a set of scorcher fronts for which pair up really well with that rear thing. So, um, yeah, so we'll just, yeah. So what's happened? They've been doing like the sizes and stuff and we'll, we'll send some over for you. Sounds good.

Alright everybody, hope you enjoyed this one and we'll catch you next time.